MARIE ANTOINETTE

An Austrian teenager (Kirsten Dunst) marries the Dauphin (Jason Schwartzman) of France and becomes that country's queen following the death of King Louis XV (Rip Torn) in 1774. Lavish imagery and a daring soundtrack set this film apart from most period dramas in Sofia Coppola's vision of the doomed queen, who became a symbol for the wanton extravagance of the 18th century monarchy—and was stripped of her riches and finery, imprisoned, and beheaded by her own subjects during the French Revolution that began in 1789.

FOUR STARS “Kirsten Dunst is pitch-perfect...She has self-possession, poise and high spirits, and they are contained within a world that gives her no way to usefully express them...Coppola's oblique and anachronistic point of view shifts the balance away from realism and into an act of empathy for a girl swept up by events that leave her without personal choices.” —Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times